EarthBound: That stuff spreads
by Curimuch
Summary: I'm sure we all curiously walked into mushrooms, yes? So has Ness.


Despite Ness being new to the freedom of exploring on his own, he wasn't very cautious about it. He's always been in his little realm of Onett and the neighborhood but never been to Twoson before. Twoson was _much_ bigger than he would've expected it to be. The drugstore there had multiple stores, floors, and even had an arcade in it! The hotel was fancier and bigger, and the flea-market park was an interesting experience despite being attacked by a man jumping off his house. If he found Twoson this large, he can only imagine what the fabled Fourside was like and he has yet to see everything in Twoson. Even if he saw bigger places, he wouldn't forget his experience in Twoson like he would never forget or like his hometown any less.

Ness didn't pay much attention to his map, but he did wander pass a preschool and kept heading east. He talked to a child who said another student was collecting mushrooms. He thought that was a strange thing to collect, but he wanted to explore some more and didn't feel like he had much of an aim at the moment. Wandering further to the east, he made it to the dirt road figuring he was getting closer to where he needed to be. Subtle rustling in the bushes made him stop and look.

A mushroom appeared to have hopped out of it!

Ness looked down to the ground and stared at the mushroom that seemed to have no balance with its constant stumbling. The mushroom was just a little bigger than the mushrooms he saw on his pizzas, probably because it had legs.

"Oh, no wonder that kid is collecting these things!" He exclaimed and continued to watch the mushroom teeter left and right and even back and forth. "Maybe it's head is too heavy for his legs?" He questioned to no one in particular. He was amused either way and chuckled when it toppled over. He crouched down and watched its little legs frantically flail around in order to regain what little balance it had before.

Ness, being the good-natured boy that he was, plucked the Mushroom up from the head and placed it on its legs while he kept his pinched fingers on top. The top of the mushroom twitched in protest so he released his fingers and watched it stumble again. It crouched onto it's knee and stayed still while it's head still twitched.

"Hm? Did I hurt you or make you dizzy?" he asked, even though he was sure it would give him no answer.

To his surprise it did reply.

With spores to the face.

The spores didn't burn, except for a few that managed to get into his eyes, but they weren't deadly stings, just irritating. His nose was tickled as well making him sneeze as he rubbed his irritated eyes. Now he was rubbing and cleaning his nose, only for the little mushroom to tackle him in the gut. He stumbled onto his back and felt that the mushroom was dancing, or well, _trying_ to stomp on his face. Ness was no longer friendly with the strange mushroom and tossed it back from where it came from. He sat up and rubbed his eyes more and noted that he could see again. As he got up, that same mushroom came back. He was going to kick it until he started to stumble like the mushroom itself!

The mushroom launched itself into his knee and knocked him over again.

Despite absence of rage, he was beginning to feel strange. He was attempting to stand again until he heard stifled laughters of a girl who he saw kick the mushroom into the bushes. The girl was holding a basket of mushrooms as she looked down at him.

"Are you okay, Mister?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm Ness, though..." Ness corrected the formality. He continued to eye the basket even after introducing himself in embarrassment. "How come-" before he could finish his sentence, the younger girl did for him.

"They aren't dancing?" she giggled and continued her playful teasing, "These are normal, _silly! _There are normal and jiggy ones, you know!"

"...I see that now..." Ness laughed nervously. Despite feeling dizzy and strange, he got up to not look like a total weakling to the girl. "Thanks for getting that mushroom out the way!"

"Everyone needs help sometimes! I need to go back to class now. Bye bye, Ness!" the little girl said and ran off in perfect balance despite holding a basket of mushrooms close to her little stature.

Ness however, wobbled the minute he took another step.

"...Woo boy..." he commented on what he see could be a possibly long trek to the hospital. "...It couldn't have hit me in the stomach _that_ hard to make me nauseous could it?" He questioned as he held onto his forehead. "...Now I'm gettin' a headache too..." He sighed and leaned against the tree. When he heard the bushes rustle again, he kicked dirt at the direction to scare off whatever was going to come out of it and wobbled back to town.

Children eyed him with large curious eyes as they silently watched the boy wobble across the street like they saw the mushrooms from the outskirts of town wobble.

"He's just like the mushrooms!" one whispered to a classmate close to him.

"Yep, he even has one growin' from the tops of his head!"

"Maybe he's turin' inta a mushroom too??"

"Hope not. Ma' says that spreads."

The girl who had the mushrooms earlier nodded confirming what her classmates had speculated.

"Yup, that's why I didn't pluck it off myself."

Ness was in his own little daze, not paying very much attention to the strange stares he was getting. He took it that people were staring at him strangely because he was wobbling around like a drunk and he was too young to be getting drunk. He hoped he wouldn't get in trouble with suspicious cops again, especially if they were like the ones in Onett that happened to know karate. His head hurt too much to bat them or to blow them away with his psychic powers. Crossing another street, he couldn't see if the light was red or green because he was seeing double. He didn't see any cars and crossed, causing a guy with weirdly styled blonde hair to halt with a loud screech and yell just as loud.

"Hey kid, waddayah doin'?!"

Ness couldn't apologize, he was on a mission, the hospital was _oh so close_ and he didn't have time for a blonde man having a middle-aged crisis. What seemed so close came to an ironic halt when he walked into a stop sign. He flopped onto his back and groaned, "No one is here to have seen that, good... I _am_ building a reputation after all..." He got up with all that his guts could muster and pushed on. When he walked through a slide door, he called for a doctor.

"Uh, this is the department store. Hospital's up north, kiddo."

"...Can't you still help me?"

"Nope. Not my job."

Ness sighed and pressed on, ignoring the lady trying to point out something sprouting from his hat.

"You know we could've," her partner at the desk murmured to her.

"Yeah, but that spreads."

"True..."

Ness tried for the hospital again, running into a few more signs and a few cranky ladies before he made it to another white building he hoped was the hospital. He walked in and before he knew it, he walked out again.

"Huh...am I seeing green in a hospital?I thought they were all pearly white..." He then heard another car honk and realized he walked out again. "Damn it," he muttered. Ness squinted his eyes, stretched his arms out and exclaimed, "I have no idea where I am turning, but please be glass doors!" and behold, glass doors it was! He laughed manically when the glass door opened and he walked into a desk. Never have he been happy to finally be in a hospital or bump into something. "Nurse?"

He received no response.

"Am I in a hospital? I can't tell anymore, I feel so insane!"

Still, he recieved no response.

"..No..No! I _HAVE_ TO BE IN A HOSPITAL. IT HAS TO BE! WHAT LITTLE I SEE IS WHITE AND--!!" Ness got onto his knees and screamed into his hands.

The nurses behind the desk watched the boy start to sob and looked at one another.

"Can't we pluck it off of him?"

"No...that stuff spreads."

Another nurse tottered by them and added, "That weird blue-haired old man can pluck it off. I'll get him."

"Nancy, are you sure??" one of the nurses worriedly called out for her in her quiet voice, so that the sobbing boy couldn't hear her and ask her to grace him his sanity back.

"If not, we're not the ones plucking it off, right?"

"Oh, true..."

Nancy walked up to the oblivious old man who was reading his magic books and asked, "Sir, you talked about mushrooms before, yes?"

The old man perked up in an instant and responded, "Why yes! You have mushrooms??"

The nurse nodded.

"Kinda, he's over there," she informed and pointed to the teen on his knees with his face buried in his hands.

"Oh! Better pluck it off! He's getting severe symptoms!" the man waddled to the boy who was absorbed in his own broken and warped world and plucked the mushroom off of his head. Since the mushroom was so deeply rooted into his mind, it took a few yanks until the mushroom was finally his.

Ness unburied his face and looked up to see that his vision was clearing as was his headache and nausea. Despite his silence, he was marveling his quick recovery

"You had a mushroom sprouting from your head and out of your hat, young fellow!"

"...I did?" Ness was confused and his voice was quiet, but a joyous quiet that his pain seemed to be gone.

The old man nodded and replied, "Yes, you did. And your hat has a hole in it. I'd get a new one, by the way."

"...Thank you so much, sir!" Ness thanked him, his tears of sorrow now tears of gratitude.

The old man handed him a fifty dollar bill with a smile and said, "Here, for your trouble and to help you get a new hat."

Ness took the bill and stuffed it into his pocket once he got up from the floor.

"If you ever get mushrooms sprouting from your head, just consult me or any of my relatives! Not only can we touch these without getting effected, we would love to buy them for our special medicines!"

After his trip with the mushrooms, not a word of what the man said seemed strange to him. Instead, he mentally jotted his words down into his mind and walked out of the hospital with a huge grin on his features.

Still not being any more cautious than he was before.


End file.
